Still don't want to let go even though separated

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi folks. I'm back. Took a few months off from this Board after my uBPD/NP wife moved out in December.

Maybe some of you remember my story but in a nutshell its the typical BPD relationship, minus any cheating or self-harm or suicide attempts.

Over the years (yes, my Gawd it has been years now) I have posted on this site on many different Boards. I am posting here because although the end is likely near and inevitable, I am still conflicted about it.

As I said my wife moved out in December. We kept our distance for awhile but began to "see each other" again, somewhat of a strained attempt at seeing where, if, there was any chance at all that living apart might make it easier for us to "work on things". This mostly consisted of happy hours, evenings at her place and a few sleep overs. We talked about some issues but still felt that therapy would be needed to discuss the core "hotbed" ones (note that we had tried Couples therapy before but it did not help but thought that we might give it a go again).

Things would get hopeful for awhile and then lapse back into the old patterns with disagreements and misunderstandings. The only difference was that we both could go to our respective places, something which both of us were really enjoying. Twice my wife asked for a divorce; twice I talked her out of it.

Although I see no realistic hope and know intellectually that things are not going to change and I am not going to get back the woman that presented herself at the beginning of our relationship, I can't seem to let go. I still love her. I put everything I had into this relationship and in many ways gave up myself to keep it going as long as it did. I guess I don't want to accept that it failed nevertheless.

I am exploring and learning about my co-dependency and trying to work on me at this point. Everybody and I mean everybody, friends, therapist, a psychic and a medium,hell even strangers if asked, say to file for divorce NOW before it gets any worse and more time passes and more alimony/community property accrues. I know what I need to do but I just can't do it right now.

How to I get unstuck. How do I let go of the woman I thought was the love of my life?

Any suggestions or comments would help!

[michel71]

Hi folks. I'm back. Took a few months off from this Board after my uBPD/NP wife moved out in December.

Maybe some of you remember my story but in a nutshell its the typical BPD relationship, minus any cheating or self-harm or suicide attempts.

Over the years (yes, my Gawd it has been years now) I have posted on this site on many different Boards. I am posting here because although the end is likely near and inevitable, I am still conflicted about it.

As I said my wife moved out in December. We kept our distance for awhile but began to "see each other" again, somewhat of a strained attempt at seeing where, if, there was any chance at all that living apart might make it easier for us to "work on things". This mostly consisted of happy hours, evenings at her place and a few sleep overs. We talked about some issues but still felt that therapy would be needed to discuss the core "hotbed" ones (note that we had tried Couples therapy before but it did not help but thought that we might give it a go again).

Things would get hopeful for awhile and then lapse back into the old patterns with disagreements and misunderstandings. The only difference was that we both could go to our respective places, something which both of us were really enjoying. Twice my wife asked for a divorce; twice I talked her out of it.

Although I see no realistic hope and know intellectually that things are not going to change and I am not going to get back the woman that presented herself at the beginning of our relationship, I can't seem to let go. I still love her. I put everything I had into this relationship and in many ways gave up myself to keep it going as long as it did. I guess I don't want to accept that it failed nevertheless.

I am exploring and learning about my co-dependency and trying to work on me at this point. Everybody and I mean everybody, friends, therapist, a psychic and a medium,hell even strangers if asked, say to file for divorce NOW before it gets any worse and more time passes and more alimony/community property accrues. I know what I need to do but I just can't do it right now.

How to I get unstuck. How do I let go of the woman I thought was the love of my life?

Any suggestions or comments would help!

[Lucky Jim]

Hey michel71, It's hard to let go of the dream, isn't it?  I would suggest that "the woman who presented herself at the beginning of your relationship" was more of an illusion than a reality.  I should know, because I fell hard at the outset.  Yet now I look back on my BPD r/s as a case of mistaken identity.  I thought she was someone who, at the end of the day, she is not.  That was my mistake, not hers.

I suspect you'll know when it's the right time to file for divorce.  Letting go involves letting go of the dream.  In my experience, it feels good to let go, because it's like releasing an "albatross" around one's neck.  In the meantime, I understand that you are suffering.

LuckyJim

[michel71]

Thanks Lucky Jim. I really appreciate your response as I know that I have probably posted the same thing, perhaps in different words, at different stages of my journey here. And I am probably not the first to post the words "still don't want to let go".
The choice to let go vs not being able to even make the choice is a sobering one. The former, speaking for myself only of course, feels like a person taking their power and using it, the latter, in my case, feels weak. I will say that at this stage my uBPDw remains unchanged in her wanting a divorce. I am the one who falls back into negotiating a reconnection mostly to dull the pain of it all I think. I keep resuscitating a relationship that repeatedly goes into cardiac arrest.
This is what it feels like. You know in that movie TITANIC where Leo DiCaprio is already dead in the water and Kate Winslet has to go of him and he sinks into the deep? I feel like Kate. And Leo is my dead relationship. If I let it go, I know it will sink. And I will have to feel the ultimate pain as it will be gone FOREVER.
So I am all tossed around in my head. Is it a question of not wanting to radically accept or being too weak and "chicken ___e" to go through with the pain?

[DaddyBear77]

About 5 years into my relationship, 2 years into marriage, my uBPDw / uNPDw, moved out.

I'll save you the long story, but I never let go and never filed for divorce. Instead, I pulled her back, REALLY pulled, and 2.5 years after she moved out, she moved back in. We're still married today, 9 years after the break.

If you split the relationship into a "before the break" and "after the break" period, my guess is that you'll find  the exact same issues exist on both sides. That's what happened for me, and I think many others would relate the same experience.

 Ask yourself, if you had another 6 years with your pwBPD, what would ACTUALLY make those next 6 livable? Would it be for her to stay the same but for you to do all the work and change something / everything about yourself? Would that make it better? How about if she suddenly had a true life-changing moment of clarity, declared herself mentally ill, and checked herself into an in-patient facility. The research shows she would need to dedicate herself to something like DBT which is a multiple times a week, multi year proposition. Would that make the next 6 years better? Is that realistic?

Another thing I wish I had though about 10 years ago, before  the "after the break" period started: do my values and life goals TRULY match up with hers? Or have I given up, compromised, all the things that were truly important to me so that she can have some or all of the things that are important to her? Is that really me living my life or is that me living someone else's life? And is she any happier now that I've made those sacrifices?

I hope for you is that you make an informed decision now that you're in this spot. My gut told me the right answer, for me, and I ignored it. Don't make that same mistake.

DB

[Lucky Jim]

My gut told me the right answer, for me, and I ignored it. Don't make that same mistake.

DB: Same here.  I ignored my gut feelings about recycling, which led to a lot of pain and misery down the line.  I knew something wasn't right, but I convinced myself that it was all part of the commitment process!

LJ

[MovingOn23]

You can find my posts here, but I can identify with where you're at. My BPDw moved out in late Dec because she "needed some time on her own." We started down the path to divorce, then her story changed and she wanted to work on it, and later switched to wanting full-on reconciliation. I'm the one who has been ready, 3 times now, to move forward with divorce - but so far every time we have recycled.

[Grey Kitty]

How to I get unstuck. How do I let go of the woman I thought was the love of my life?

It might help if you try to accept her as she is, instead of who you "thought she was".

The person who idealized you at the beginning wasn't the real person, isn't sustainable, and never will be sustainable.

The one who is real is the one who has occasional sweet moments, but cannot sustain them, and gets into horrible fights and wants to divorce you, then lets herself be talked out of it.

The other thing which might help you is to realize that you can love her forever even while you know you cannot live with her and stay married to her. Maybe you can love her and maintain a more distant friendship. Maybe you can't even do that with her, but you can try.

Still, you don't have to hate her to get divorced; all you have to do is not want to stay tied to her like you are/were.